Ivon Crispin Skelton

alt b.11 August 1898, d 1923

Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour, Christchurch, was set up as a leprosy colony in 1906 until its closure in 1925. Patients were shipped to the island to be kept in isolation – and conditions were Spartan. A lonely grave on Quail Island is a sad reminder of New Zealand’s involvement with leprosy.

Ivon Crispen Skelton

Ivon Crispen Skelton (1898-1925) lies buried there. Ivon was born in Samoa and brought his unsuspected leprosy with him to New Zealand, when he visited relatives on the West Coast. The Health Minister quickly banished Ivon to the Quarantine Station on Quail Island, where a small cottage was built beyond the Quarantine line and fenced off – there he remained for the next nineteen years. A second leper, Jimmy, was sent to the island in 1908, and a third patient in 1909. By 1925, there were nine lepers, including two Maori and two Chinese. The caretakers of the island provided cooked food which was left at the fence.

With the closure of Quail Island, as a leprosarium, the remaining patients were transferred to the island of Makogai, Fiji, where they joined a group of about 750 leprosy sufferers from around the South Pacific. Patrick Twomey dedicated himself to the cause and he soon became known as “The Leper Man”. Likewise, up in Heretaunga, Upper Hutt, the SMSM Sisters were known as “The Leper Nursing Sisters”.